Underground explosions Saturday rocked Downtown Indianapolis, injuring three people, damaging businesses and causing evacuations. . . . It was the third time in nine days Downtown has been rocked by underground explosions. . . . Investigators said there is no evidence natural gas caused the blast or that the underground cables had been vandalized. . . . More than 50,000 people are expected in the dome today as the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos meet at 1 p.m. in an American Football Conference wild-card game. More police will be on hand today in the area of the dome to direct traffic to and from the game, authorities said.

PunchtheBag has a good entry about Daniels’ decision to appoint a Kentucky man to head up Indiana’s prison system. I think it’s probably a prelude to privatization. As PunchtheBag puts it:

So for fresh ideas we go to Kentucky? It’s bad enough that Kentucky has reduced the IU Hoosiers to nothing more than a scrimmage opponent, but why not raid Maine, Vermont, or even North Dakota for jail expertise? According to this ranking, those states barely have shoplifters.

Looks like the enacting sections of Pub. L. 89-387 might act as a grandfather
clause. Couldn’t find the full text of that law online, but I found this:

This Act (enacting this section and sections 260a, 266, and 267 of this title and amending sections 261 to 263 of this title) shall take effect on April 1, 1967; except that if any State . . . or any political subdivision thereof, observes daylight saving time in the year 1966, such time shall advance the standard time otherwise applicable in such place by one hour[.]

So, if the eastern counties were observing Daylight Saving time in 1966, they might be grandfathered in even if the other eastern time zone Indiana counties didn’t observe DST.

If a state lies entirely within 1 time zone, it can exempt the whole state from DST.

If a state lies over two time zones, it can exempt the entire state or the part of the state in one time zone.

The Dept. of Transportation has responsibility for determining the bounds of the various time zones.

The Department of Transportation adopted rules that set the division between Eastern and Central in Indiana at 47 CFR 71.5(b). It winds along and puts Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, and Jasper, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, and Spencer counties in the Central Time Zone.

Under IC 1-1-8.1 , Indiana has indicated that its Eastern time zone territory will not follow DST and its Central time zone territory will follow DST.

It could be a failure of mine, but under 15 USC 260, IC 1-1-8.1, and 47 CFR 71.5(b), I cannot see any authority to allow Clark, Dearborn, Floyd, and Harrison counties to follow eastern daylight time. If I’m right, those counties could be in violation of federal law.

Introduced Version, House Bill 1076 States that only a named insured or someone seeking insured status can bring an action for declaration of coverage prior to judgment being entered on the underlying claim.

Can’t say I like this one very much. This would apparently stop someone who has been injured by a tortfeasor from obtaining a determination of whether the tortfeasor has any insurance coverage. So, let’s say someone blows a red light, T-bones your car, and causes you a whole lot of injuries. Maybe the driver’s insurer says that the latest premium was received a day or two late and there’s no coverage. The driver says he paid it on time. The insurer defends the driver under a reservation of rights. So, to obtain your judgment, you have to fight through the insurer-paid attorneys, but at the end of the day, there might not be any money to pay your judgment. Knowing whether your judgment is worthless or not could very well affect how much you put into your case, paying experts, taking depositions, etc.

Contrast that with a potentially much cheaper action against the insurer for determination of the question of whether they cover the driver or not. You lose that one, and you probably cut your losses, figuring a judgment against the driver is worthless. You win that one and you expend whatever resources you can afford and your injuries justify.

An Indianapolis Star article about Gov. Daniels’ proposal to sell off government assets and allow naming rights. I certainly have no problem with selling assets that the state doesn’t need. But there is also talk of selling the toll road (I-80/90) to private interests. I’m against selling critical infrastructure to non-government entities. (I’m generally against toll-roads themselves, for what it’s worth. Roads are a common good and should be paid for as such and accessed by the public as such.) But don’t get into the business of turning capital costs into operating costs by selling stuff you need to private interests and then leasing from them.

Kemplog Trackback I’m just excited to see my first TrackBack since I installed Movable Type. The kind of interactivity offered by more advanced blogging software amazes me. Maybe we’re creating the kind of neural net that’ll make us all smarter, or dumber, or something. Probably something that could be mapped out by complexity theorists. (As if I understand what that means.) I guess my only point is that it’s pretty cool what we can do nowadays.